![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
radio silence
I use my portable tablet computer to keep up with e-mail, assuming there's wi-fi I can access, but typing on the little popup keyboard is not conducive to writing at greater than minimal length. I did choose my hotel in part because it had a business center, guest-usable desktop computers, but I found on my first evening that both computers were frozen in awkward positions, and while the desk clerk agreed to put in a request for repair, nothing had been done by the time I left. Of course, there was a holiday weekend in there.
One of the hotel's two elevators was also out of service. Good thing that wasn't both of them, because my room was on the tenth floor.
The hotel was located in downtown Pittsburgh. The one in Pennsylvania. I was there - by far the furthest away from home I've gone since before the pandemic - on a compulsion I could not possibly resist, not that I wished to resist it. It was my brother's wedding. (He lives and works in Pittsburgh, as does his wife, who's a native of the area.) It took longer for him than it did for me to "find his person," as they put it in the ceremony, but he definitely has. I've met her a few times before, and they're ideal for each other.
The ceremony was held at the Grand Concourse, an elaborate and colorful preserved 19C train station converted into the kind of restaurant you'd visit for a special occasion, of which this was certainly one. There were about 30 guests, tucked into the corner of one small room for the ceremony, after which we spread out somewhat further for a very fine dinner in another room, one with a stunning view of the Monongahela River and downtown opposite.
It was a highly personalized occasion, and cherishable for all who attended. Among the guests were a couple old friends (i.e. since childhood) of my brother's, whom I know but hadn't seen in a long time. One of them is a rabbi, and he conducted the ceremony.
Part of the service was the reading of a modern version of the seven blessings, a Jewish ritual that was new to me. Seven people close to the couple were asked, and I and my other brother were among them. We each stood up, identified ourselves, and read a blessing as modified by the couple, and, at least in my case (I read the Wisdom blessing) elaborated on a bit by me: it seemed to fit the circumstances.
There was more to the celebration than the ceremony and dinner, and I'll say more about that, and about Pittsburgh - which I've been to before, but never deposited in downtown on my own resources - tomorrow.